Torch
by Andraste
Summary: Ever wonder what happened to Niem, otherwise known as Peace Keeper Barbie? Written for the peripheral character challenge on the Leviathan mailing list.


Disclaimer: They belong to others than I.  
  
Something for the peripheral character challenge, because we never did find  
out what happened to her. At least not up until the end of Season Two - if  
this story is rendered inert by anything in Season Three I don't want to  
hear about it, being an Australian and seriously Farscape deprived. You don  
't get a lot more peripheral than this without being noted as "second Peace  
Keeper on the left" in the closing credits.  
  
Torch  
  
By Andraste  
  
The screams didn't last long enough for Niem to be sure she'd heard  
them. It should have been impossible to detect any sounds from the Gammack  
base this far below ground, behind the thick walls of the vault. Of course,  
there would have been a *lot* of screams in the brief interval between fiery  
death and deadly silence. It was very quiet now.  
  
There had been no screaming within the vault. Niem was grimly proud of  
herself for keeping her head and completing her set task. All of the  
records she hadn't had time to copy before Scorpius warned her of the  
impending disaster were sealed in safely. She'd even managed to find enough  
techs to help her move the Aurora Chair itself, although she had aroused  
some suspicion doing so.  
  
She wondered, briefly, weather she had done the right thing in following her  
master's order not to tell anyone what was coming. But no. They would only  
have panicked, and Scorpius had taught her more effectively than any Peace  
Keeper indoctrination that directionless emotion was useless.  
  
The data was stored on heat-proof, cold-proof, explosion-proof material -  
Scorpius was rather paranoid about losing his raw material. Unfortunately  
for Niem, the vault itself was not sealed against the heat.  
  
All Peace Keeper facilities were designed to be comfortably cool, but they  
were not built to burn. Nor were their generators - the tech could tell for  
certain that something had gone badly wrong on the surface when all the  
lights went out. She cursed the idiot who hadn't made the vault an entirely  
self-contained system, and hoped that the lock and ventilation would  
continue to work. It was very dark. Not that it mattered, really.  
  
The insulation slowed the rising temperature, but not enough. It took an  
arn before Niem started to sweat, and another before she felt her head begin  
to swim, her thoughts melting away. There was nothing to do but wait for  
the Living Death to claim her. She didn't waste energy (or air - with the  
ventilation out she might suffocate in here before the brain damage took  
her) on terror.  
  
Instead, she found her way to the banks of data by feel, and ran her fingers  
over the codes carved into their spines. Brushing up against other people's  
memories as her own were leeched away by the heat. Her work, at least, was  
secure. Everything that had been in the head of the human John Crichton,  
except the single clump of information that was of interest to Scorpius, was  
safe. Niem had watched his odd memories unfurl with as much surprise as  
someone who regularly witnessed such displays could muster. For a creature  
that looked so Sebacean, he had a very odd mind. She hoped that the neural  
clone Scorpius had placed in his brain would bear fruit, that the effort  
would be for something.  
  
Captain Crais's files were next to those of the man he'd hunted across the  
Uncharted Territories - there was another story that Niem would miss the end  
of. The memories themselves were not especially remarkable, but she had  
never seen anyone spend so long in the Aurora Chair in a single day. When  
Niem had finally unstrapped him and cleaned him up, he'd been startlingly  
sane. The effect would bear further study. From someone other than her,  
obviously.  
  
In marked contrast: more of the endless, pointless loops of nonsense from  
the Banick that never took them to the place they wanted to go. Niem always  
wondered what good those were, but her master could find a use for most  
things. Perhaps Scorpius kept the irrelevant files out of the simple  
fascination that eventually gripped anyone who examined the insides of other  
people's skulls.  
  
She stretched out her hands again, and felt her way to the Chair itself.  
Sitting down, Niem waited, platting and unwinding her long red hair. It was  
a nervous habit from her childhood, but there was no-one to observe her  
small weakness now. Eventually, though, she found herself rocking back and  
forth and murmuring, as the Banick used to do. It was a common reaction to  
both the Chair and to the Living Death. She wondered what it was about  
memories, or the loss of them, that made people whimper.  
  
Soon enough, she gripped the arms of the Chair to stop herself. Although  
the cameras could not see through the darkness, there were probably  
microphones, and since the vault belonged to Scorpius there might be  
infrared sensors as well. Niem did not like to think of him listening to  
her break down. He had taught her to be quiet.  
  
As her thoughts burned away in the dark, she wondered idly what his mind was  
like, and wished that she'd been able to run him through his own information  
retrieval device, just once, in order to find out. It was a mad idea,  
justifiable only in light of her imminent end. Niem hoped that she hadn't  
said anything out loud.  
  
Another mad idea: she wished that Scorpius had used the Aurora Chair on her  
so that her memories would be filed away here too. If Crichton, or Captain  
Crais, or even the Banick slave, died today then no-one would forget them.  
She had held the proof of their existence in her hands, wrung it out of them  
with the push of a button. She would leave nothing behind but a mindless  
shell, hair twisted by failing fingers.  
  
Niem was aware that her last service to Scorpius might be as a test subject.  
The Living Death intrigued him as all manifestations of Sebacean heat  
sensitivity did. She hoped, though, that he would be kind enough to let  
storing his data be her last task. Niem thought that she had earned her  
peace, although she would never feel his hands close about her neck one last  
time.  
  
After that, she didn't think much at all.  
  
The End 


End file.
